Web Gateway Appliance

May 19, 2009
By: Charles Tajvidi

In eighty years a personal computer was commonly used as a sophisticated typewriter or a powerful worksheet. Rarely a computer was connected to a network or even to another computer and Internet was reserved just for few advanced users.

Today hundreds of millions of people worldwide connect regularly to Internet and Web applications hosted all over the world. The Web popularity has transformed a personal computer into a terminal machine connecting people.

For most of us Web applications are vital and Internet changed our life forever. Never before did humanity have such a powerful tool to share knowledge, information and emotion. Unfortunately and in despite of that so wonderful description, connecting to the Internet also means exposing yourself to serious threats.

In such a world wild web the main question is how to deliver Secure and Optimized Web traffics? Controlling Web accesses, securing Web applications, managing Web flows, filtering Web content, supporting overloads, managing the Quality of Service or providing High Availability are all issues that concern the nature of Web traffics that cannot be treated smoothly in the Web application itself nor at the network level.

Several approaches aim to offer solutions to manage Web traffics. Among all solutions, there are two that have attracted our attention. The first approach consists of integrating many Commercial Appliances to reach the goals. The second approach is based on the integration of Open Source technologies and sometimes, homemade solutions. While the first solution trusts on the know-how of reputed appliance manufacturers, the second solution trusts on the know-how of the Open Source community and the IT staff.

The lack of both considerations is that more often several technologies are to be integrated to provide both security and optimization. These approaches leverage the complexity of the final solution and as a result the maintenance costs.

The ideal solution would be an integrated off-the-shelf solution requiring no additional development and based on Open Source technologies to be flexible enough and trustworthy. CacheGuard provides such a solution with a new approach based on an Open Source Operating System Appliance (OSOSA). The product is proposed as software, hardware and virtual appliance.

CacheGuard differs from any other solution by being an integrated solution joining together numerous free Open Source technologies and proprietary Open Source developments to secure and optimize Web traffics at the same time. The OS Appliance approach allows to auto magically transform an x86-based machine into a powerful and highly integrated appliance that manages all main Web traffic issues in a unique box.

Install CacheGuard OS on your hardware box in less than 5 minutes and gain in transparency, flexibility and productivity. Download your free trial version at www.cacheguard.com.

Charles Tajvidi is an IT Technical Architect and Appliance developer. He has more than 17 years of experience in system, network and security domain. www.cacheguard.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

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